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\4 - 0012 '^ \ 

SketcHes of South Georgia Folklife 



Library of Congress 
Washington 




















Publications of the American Folklife Center No. 2 


COVER: High Hill Baptist Church, Turner Counfy 



Sketches of South Georgia Folklife 


Edited by Carl Fleischhauer and Howard W. Marshall 
American Folklife Center 


Library of Congress 

Washington 

1977 



The nine portraits in this volume are not the first published 
“sketches” of South Georgia folklife, for in 1918 J. L. 
Herring gathered together into a book entitled Saturday; 
Night Sketches a series of affectionate portraits he had 
written for the Tifton Daily; Gazette. His sketches were 
limned with words; ours lean more heavily upon 
photography. But despite the shift to a different medium 
and the lapse of a tumultuous half century, 1 am struck as 1 
thumb through his essays by the similarities between his 
perception of the region and ours. Those similarities 
bespeak a fundamental continuity in the traditional life and 
work of the region which we are proud to celebrate here. 

Our project dates from the day some months ago when 
Syd Blackmarr, Director of the Arts Experiment Station at 
Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, called me in 
Washington, D.C., to talk about the cultural programming 
of her region. Our conversations, and subsequent 
discussions with others in her region, led to a six-week field 
project organized by the American Folklife Center this past 
summer in south-central Georgia. Folklife Center staff were 
joined by four professional folklorists—Tom Adler, Bill 
Lightfoot, Beverly Robinson, and Dave Stanley—to canvass 
the region and to document its patterns of traditional life. 


2 



A; 

t 


work, and expression. The sketches in this volume, drawn 
together for the use and pleasure of the people of South 
Georgia, are the first product of that canvass. 

We look forward to further products of our efforts. One of 
the most exciting aspects of the project for the American 
Folklife Center was the fact that we came at the invitation of 
and worked in cooperation with citizens and organizations 
concerned with the cultural nourishment of their 
communities. Their interest and commitment bodes well for 
the development of future programs within the region that 
draw upon South Georgia’s rich folk cultural resources. 

Syd Blackmarr of the Arts Experiment Station has earned 
our deep gratitude for making the South-Central Georgia 
Folklife Project possible, pleasant, and productive. We owe 
thanks to the arts councils of the region for their help and 
encouragement. Local governmental units and the Georgia 
Council for the Arts and Humanities provided much-needed 
assistance in the project. Finally, we offer this book in 
gratitude, as well as in testimony, to the people of Ben Hill, 
Berrien, Colquitt, Cook, Irwin, Tift, Turner, and Worth 
County, who freely gave of their time, hospitality, and 
knowledge to help us in our work. 

Alan Jabbour 

Director, American Folklife Center 



niLftS 



3 



























Church Homecoming. An annual church homecoming brings members who have moved away back 
together with their old friends and former neighbors. Bethel Baptist Church in southeastern Worth County 
held its annual homecoming on August 14. Much of the day was spent making music—hymns led in turn by 
different members, with occasional solos, quartets, or duets such as sung by Mr. and Mrs. Jack Green, 
pictured in the following section. Reverend Ralph Hobbs preached the sermon, and everyone enjoyed 
socializing during dinner hour in the fellowship hall. 


4 












5 






















6 
















































































Gospel Concert. August 14 was also the day of the 15th Anniversary 
Concert of a Tifton gospel group, The Mighty Spiritual Crusaders. 

The concert was held at Traveler’s Rest Church in Tifton, and groups 
from Ocilla, Sylvester, and Cordele also performed. Gospel concerts, 
which provide a shared expression of community beliefs and spirit, 
are important in the life of the region. 


9 







10 










Living History, This large nineteenth-century barn 
on Mr. and Mrs. Elton Clark’s farm in the Crosland 
community in northeastern Colquitt County serves 
as livestock shelter and storage for corn and hay. 

The three rectangular cribs, aligned and set high off the 
ground, are built of skinned pine logs and joined at 
the corners by saddle-notching. The barn is an 
example of traditional Lowland South techniques of 
building in wood, and in its layout is an extension 
of the more usual double-crib type. 



















Rectangular units are customary for all sorts of agricultural outbuildings. The same manner of 
crib or pen, whether frame or log, can serve as corn crib, tobacco or cotton packhouse, cook 
house, potato house, and here on the Clark farm as a smokehouse. The Clark smokehouse 
shares with many South Georgia buildings a sheltering projecting roof; the horizontal poles 
extending out over the door, from which hogs are hung for butchering, are more unusual. 













Mr. Clark is a retired rural mail carrier and a fine local 
historian devoted to understanding and preserving the 
cultural past of the area. In the 1940 photograph he is 
holding, he demonstrates the use of the traditional well 
sweep at the farm. The building to the right of the well 
sweep is the Gibbs house, which the Clarks donated to the 
local history museum, Georgia Agrirama in Tifton, for 
reconstruction as part of the educational program. People 
like the Clarks provide a vital link between the generations 
and have important lessons to teach us about life and work 
in the past. 


13 






Fishing Trip. In Ben Hill County on a likely day in August, James Griffin and Lendon 
Sherret of Fitzgerald seine for shiners and other live bait in a slough near the Alapaha River. The 
men haul the boat to a nearby lake, and after a pleasant expedition with friends, the reward for 
Philip Jay is a fine largemouthed bass. 


14 





15 


rr 







The Roi^al Tabernacle, home of the Ro^/al Singing Convention. 
Mgstic. Irwin Countg. 1916. 


From the Family Album 

16 












Haruesting wheat in M. N. Denham’s field. Turner Countij, 
ca. 1920. Photo by Carlos Ross. 


Mrs. Minnie Pearl Brown, Tifton, Tift County/. 


Mrs. Minnie Pearl Brown, Tifton, Tift Count];. 















Artie Lott, Cook County;, ca. 1925. 
Photo by Ben Green. 


Carlos Ross, near S^/camore, Turner Counfy, ca. 1920. 


18 
















Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Lott Ross. Turner County, 
ca. 1945. Photo by Carlos Ross. 


Famil\; homecoming near Live Oak Church, Turner County/, 
1920-30. Photo by Carlos Ross. 


19 







Family Tobacco Harvest. Three generations work together to bring in 
Jimmy Akins’s tobacco crop. Mr. Akins, his wife Carolyn, her father J. L. 
Yawn, and the Akins children, Becky, Lucy, and James, are joined by a 
neighbor, Terry Williams. According to Mr. Akins, Becky’s job is the hardest. 
“The racks or sticks or whatever you call them need to be uniform,” he said, 
“packed in such a way it’ll cook and not fall off.” The Akins and Yawn families 
live just north of Enigma in Berrien County. 


20 




21 










22 












23 



















Hunting Stories. Recorded August 12, at the home of 
Luther A. Bailey, sometimes known as “Lying” Bailey, 
south of Sycamore in Turner County. 


Luther Bailey;: You talking about hunting—you don’t 
know nothing about these coons, do you? 

Bill Lightfoot: Not very much. 

LB: You never did hunt a coon? 

BL: I went on one coon hunt once, but that’s, that’s about 
the extent of it. 

LB; Well they are mighty fast, when the first mile or two 
or three miles, you jump one. You just about the fastest 
thing on foot there is till they find a tree. 

1 had one of the best coon dogs going across them woods 
you ever saw. And he struck this durn coon and that coon 
went right out and across the open field. And they just 
looked like he was just going, going to catch that coon 
every minute. He was just biting at him. Woof, woof. And 
he quit. And he never did bark no more. 

I took my lantern and went out across there, see could I 
find him, find out what was wrong. That dog was laying out 
there dead. And do you know—that coon was running so 
fast until them rings on his tail slipped off from his tail and 
went over that dog’s neck and choked him to death. 


LB: We had one old man, old Colley Claghorn, over 
here, he was a terrible hunter. Say he had the best dog 
that ever been. 

Carl Fleiscbbauer: What was his name? 

LB: Colley Claghorn. 

CF: Colley? 

LB: Yeah. He had them black-backed Tennessee 
hounds. 

CF: Mm. 

LB: And he run a ad all up there in Tennessee and all 
around, sell this dog. And this multi-millionaire wanted a 
dog and he come down to try him out. And they went out. 
Well the dog struck soon as they in the woods and directly 
he treed. 

And they got there, said, “Well, he’s a good one, he put 
him up real quick.” Splashing the light all up there in the 
tree, see could they see him. Says, “Mr. Claghorn,” he 
says, “they ain’t no coon up this tree.” He says, “Oh, I 
forgot to tell you,” he says, “that dog’s thirty minutes 
ahead of that coon.” He said, “Just wait, he’ll be here 
in a little while.” 

Mart]; Bay.- He did have some good coon dogs. That 
was—he, he was the same man that had one of them coon 
dogs he had to keep one plug in one nostril to keep from 
tracking two at once, he said. 


25 




. \ 


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. w 





26 









In Lenox, Georgia. John R. Griffin, eighty, plays a 
lively “Love My Sweetheart Good as Anybody” 
while his brother Arthur, in his seventies, “beats 
the straws,” adding a staccato rhythmic drone by 
striking the violin strings with a broom straw. Mr. 
Griffin’s style and repertory reflect the older 
traditions of instrumental dance music in South 
Georgia. He grew up in rural Cook County but has 
lived for many years in Lenox, one of many 
towns built along the railroads of the region. 



27 






28 










Etta Anderson. Mrs. Etta Anderson lives with her husband in a large center-hall house on the north side of Ocilla 
in Irwin County. She is a quiltmaker and a student of wild and domestic plants, which she uses both to prepare 
home remedies and for food. She makes jams, jellies, and preserves and cans fruits and garden vegetables. Two of 
her grandchildren, Oscar Anderson and Tisha Bryant, are shown on the following pages in the front living room 
and together with Mrs. Anderson in the kitchen at the back of her house. 


29 






30 




































31 
















The materials used in this booklet were collected by the fieldwork team between July 11 and 
August 21, 1977. The Bethel Church homecoming was attended by William E. Lightfoot and 
Thomas A. Adler. The Mighty Spiritual Crusaders concert and Mrs. Etta Anderson were visited by 
Beverly J. Robinson. Mr. and Mrs. Elton Clark were visited by Howard W. Marshall. David H. 
Stanley went along on the fishing trip and visited the Akins and Yawn families. Luther A. Bailey 
was visited by Lightfoot. Alan Jabbour visited in Lenox with John R. and Arthur Griffin. Carl 
Fleischhauer accompanied the fieldworkers to the homecoming, the gospel concert, and on some 
of their visits to the Akins, Yawn, Bailey, Griffin, and Anderson homes. 

Photographs: Marshall, cover and pp. 10-13. Adler, p. 6 bottom. Stanley, pp. 14-16 and p. 23 
right. Robinson, p. 28 left and p. 29. The remaining photographs are by Fleischhauer. 

The maps and floorplans are by Marshall. 


32 




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